AuShRef

New Reading Rooms Now Open!

Come down to the Library today and try out the customisable reading rooms! Read, relax, and discuss in a customisable virtual construct. New pre-sets are now available:

• The Classic:
  

[An image of a comfy-looking armchair, with a small side table and lamp, tucked in between tall wooden bookshelves.]

• Personal study area:
  

[An image of a bright, functional-looking study space. Uncluttered and free from distraction.]

• “Rusty’s Reading Retreat”:
  

[An image of a cosy-looking nest of blankets and cushions on a padded windowsill. A small table beside the seating area holds a tray of biscuits and a steaming cup of tea.]

• “The Clocktower” Discussion Room:
  

[An image of a pair of warm leather armchairs angled slightly towards each other. The walls are rich wood panelling, removed in places to reveal brass cogs ticking away inside the walls. Each armchair also has a side table with a teacup.]

All Reading Rooms are fully customisable, with a wide range of furniture and decoration options. Show off your creativity and submit your own design for a chance to have it featured as a new pre-set option!

Finally, you get the door open. You almost turned back at the sight of this half-corroded monstrosity blocking your way - you really should get round to upgrading your actuators - but you didn’t fight through miles of vine-filled, waterlogged tunnels to turn back now. But after jamming your (newly-reinforced) chassis into the small gap and determinedly rocking back and forth, the door finally budges just enough for you to push inside.

You take in the room: just a little mould around the edges, but the air humidity is reading low. That’s a good sign - at least that old door did something good, and that was to keep this internal room well-sealed against the environment, even as the seas rose around the base of the megastructure several hundred years ago.

There’s an old set of filing cabinets against one wall. You scoot over and start eagerly peering inside. Unfortunately, some enterprising insect got here before you and has reduced the files to so much dust. Drat; that doesn’t bode well. With the room sealed as it was, whatever insect life that was in here may already have worked its way through every other food source in this room.

Trying not to lose hope, you continue to thoroughly search the rest of the room. One of the drawers of a desk in the corner looks interesting. It appears to have a tightly-sealed metal inlay under the faux-wood exterior. Perhaps to protect the contents against fire, or other disaster? You flick out the lockpick extension on your actuator and pick the drawer open.

As the drawer slides out, golden light reflects back up onto the front of your chassis from the exquisitely gilded treasure. This trip was worth it after all, and you’ve found what you were looking for: a new book.

Extraction of pre-Scouring knowledge from ventworm DNA

Abstract: Following on from the most unexpected multidisciplinary investigation in recent history[1][2], we have identified the deep-ocean ventworm as the subject of the oral mythology passed down by the Eou’Sha’Raf Order of Scribes and Librarians. Due to the nature of the Scouring, very few physical records have survived to this day. Residing deep in the ocean in a stable and uncontested ecological niche[3], the ventworms would have been shielded from most disasters and would have been a prime candidate for genetic storage by pre-Scouring society[4]. In this paper, we will show how we have accurately sequenced ventworm telomeres and run statistical analysis to establish the presence of meaningful encoded information. We present the DNA sequence in full in a supplementary document[5] and invite academics from the world over to join the effort of decrypting this truly astounding resource.